Bnechis

Lots of material to cover here. 1) First I understand your examples are suppose to be theoretical, but Who from the "paid side" has been advocating this? The career fire service has been advocating proper training and staffing for every response. The career side has not been "arguing" to replace volunteers in Northern Westchester. 2) I know of no departments in Westchester that are "self-Consolidating". Yes many are assisting each other on a more regular basis. Consolidation is much more involved and includes the merging of administrative and/or operational towards becoming a single entity. Same Chief(s), Same SOP's, planning & purchasing based on the combined area. Same training, same drills, same meetings, etc. 3) Their are 2 terms accepted by NFPA, ISO & The NYS Insurance Commissioner; Mutual Aid and Automatic Aid. Neither of these are consolidation, they are helping each other out. One is done thru pre arraignment, while the other requires an action to occur. 4) Since most of the departments in Northern Westchester are fire districts, none of these are "on the chopping block" until/if the state gets tougher and "forces" the issue. They have not gotten close to this (yet). I do not believe that any of these departments in recent years has not purchased a replacement rig, which while working with the neighbors would be a major 1st step in consolidation. I applaud the leadership of these depts. for finally realizing that without automatic aid they can no longer function safely or provide the level of service that the community believes they are paying for. 5) Because the distances are too great. Now that being said, a proper consolidation requires substantial planning and determining where resources are needed (including frequency) and where they are. Based on my knowledge of the existing department locations in Northern Westchester, almost every station is needed and should be staffed with an engine and most likely a tanker. That means the remaining 1,2, or 3 engines in the house may no longer be needed in a consolidated dept. Specialty units do not need to be in every house and that's part of the planning to determine where they should go. If each dept. had only 1 or 2 apparatus to be responsible for staffing, it would more likely roll with a proper response.

will by done soon.

Yes and that protects any $$ you already paid them. But you are back to square 1 in terms of rebidding the project. So tack on another 18-24 months after the bond is settled.

Contracting with an agency (volunteer, commercial, hospital, fire protection district, etc.) is not part of GML. What I believe you are referring to is a MUNICON, which is the municipalities ability to get a certificate of need (CON) without "approval" from the regional EMS council. Their is no legal requirement in NYS for a municipality to provide EMS (however their are many legal requirements once they decide to). Their is also nothing in the law that prevents them from switching providers, unless they violate a clause in the contract with the existing service. 1st does CVAC hold the CON or is it the towns? 2nd this might open up a huge can of worms when it comes to mutual aid (what's in the plan?) and providing ALS?

The problem for selling LTI is most of the engineers who designed them left when ALF moved to SC. They all went to Crimson (now renamed Spartan ERV).

1) Stockpile spare parts 2) Warn the City Administration that delays in replacing apparatus will result in long down times and higher costs. Eventually it will mean emergency purchases which do not meet the dept needs and costs more. 3) Custom manufacture parts. This may be ok for minor components, but ladder parts and other systems can not be done due to safety & liability.

No plans. They have not supported us with parts or warranties for a couple of years.

http://sconfire.com/?p=2687 American LaFrance LLC (Fire Apparatus Builders) based in Moncks Corner, Pimlico and Ephrata Pa have CLOSED their DOORS today @ 5pm. Telling employees they are closed and not to return next week

Generally, the lower hose bed is created by making the horizontal water tank a vertical tank (in front of the hose bed) and their is no change in the center of gravity as you have moved some of the water up into the space that use to be occupied by hose.

You Hang Up....No you hang up 1st

So FDNY ONLY does Reverse Lay? Just because they don't call it forward lay (in line pumping) does not mean it the only way they do it. We do both forward and reverse and have been doing it since we had 5 man engines, So its clearly not for job security. If you only need one or 2 lines the reverse lay works just fine, but once you need more, you end up having to do massive hand stretches to do. Something that works well only if you have a number of engine companies with lots of manpower on each. Many depts. that do reverse lays are getting 250-300 gpm out of their 1,500gpm pumps, not very efficient. Earlier this year I went mutual aid to a scene that started as a house fire, but quickly spread to both exposure 2 & 4. The homes were in the middle of a long narrow street. The dept. did two 500 foot reverse lays out from the scene to the hydrants at the next corner (one to one corner, the other to the intersection in the opposite direction). The positioned 2 ladders in front of the buildings. This worked great when they need 900gpm from a couple of hand lines. Because they always do reverse they did not use the hydrant directly across the street (it would have required a 50' back stretch). Once they needed to boost the flow by 2,000 gpm (with 2 ladder pipes) they had no way to do it. The IC asked me to establish a water source. We found the next closest hydrant on the block behind the fire block, forwarded laid 200 ft of 5in LDH, then hand back stretch 600-700 ft up over a 6' wall, thru two yards (luckily the fence had been knocked down in a storm), then up the block to the ladder that was in front of the non used hydrant. 1,300 -1,500gpm to the ladder pipes. Wow so 1 fire in the last 40+ years had an issue with hydrant "gremlins" well that's a good reason to stop using our pumpers to maximum ability.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20140108/NEWS01/301080020/new-hamburg-fire-district "WAPPINGERS FALLS — The New Hamburg Fire District stopped operations at one of its two stations in December without notifying the public because the move will have no effect on safety, officials said." "Even Station Two’s firefighters were not notified of the decision to cease operations until after their keys stopped working, said Peter Valdez, a New Hamburg volunteer." "The consolidation in the Town of Poughkeepsie-based district came about because of a lack of volunteers at Station Two and a “projected savings to taxpayers” due to a decrease in utility payments, Renihan said." "The ongoing lack of response from Station Two is one reason why there’s no public safety threat with its cease of operations, Renihan said." “If you have no one responding anyway ... it’s not like we’re harming anyone.”

Contact the County Civil Service Office. Since if it counts, it only counts if you do it with them anyway.

1) Just trying to prove your point. BTW, Cant stretch well with one man engines....need some help 2) In part that's because they have all non-combustible structures, changes the tactics. I have friends in a number of European FB's (Fire Brigades) and they say they would never accept the low pay we work for. After comparing the actual numbers they tend to fall above our average, but below our highest paid (who are often the ones with understaffed rigs). 3) Thank you. You too.

Yes even if the 4th man is at the hydrant, because now you have a 3 man engine with a water supply vs. a 3 man engine without. This also frees up the next engine (3 or 4 man) to not have to establish the 1st water supply and they can go right to work. Since we use to have 4 (and when I started, occasionally 5 man engines) and have gone to 3, one big problem has been in standpipe buildings. With 4 - the driver would stay outside to supply the Siamese the officer would find the fire apt. and often determine the layout from the floor below the 2 FF's would flake out the line, nozzle man would go to the nozzle and hydrant man would control the wheel. the officer & nozzle man would advance the line and once flow was established the hydrant man would chase the kinks and relieve the officer in backing up the nozzle man. Now with 3 - The driver is still in the street, the officer helps flake the line and does not do his job. When ready to charge the line the officer has to man the wheel and let the nozzle man advance the line by himself (violating OSHA 29CFR1910.134). Now when the nozzle man is a probie, the officer will often take the nozzle and send the nozzle man to get the wheel, so he is not sending the rookie in alone.

1) The US Census 2010 (with 2012 supplemental). The City of Mt Vernon Website claims 70,000+ in multiple locations 2) You started off by adding rigs with fewer ff's than I said the standard calls for then using that to try to justify your position. If the flexibility of more rigs is so important, then why not 1 man rigs? MVFD could have 20 on the street. Wow...we really do all those things? I never would have considered that we do anything other than fire Thanks for pointing that out. NIOSH only measured the results that experienced fire suppression personnel did, maybe you should try to understand what they did, and why they did it was because the IAFF wanted to proved that staffing matters and that too many depts. do not have enough personnel per rig. While 3 man companies often do a spectacular job, their is no way they can do better than a comparable trained 4 man crew. Often the 3 man crew is really a 1 man crew, as the driver is at the pump and the officer should be an officer and if he is pulling hose, he is not doing his job. 3) Your right all those chiefs in major depts. around the world who have studied this don't know what you do because they are no longer "in the trenches". FDNY should go to twice as many 3 man companies, because the guys in the trenches know it all. All over Great Britain & Germany Engines run with minimum of 6 and they have much better construction and fire prevention than we do. Paris runs 8 man engines..........but what do they know.... Studies performed by Dallas, Providence, NYC, and others must all be wrong because you've been there and done that. Sorry this tapped you out. Most of the world works this way, but here in the north east we can see past the walls that surround every square mile.

Commission on Fire Accreditation International http://publicsafetyexcellence.org/agency-accreditation/about-accreditation-cfai.aspx

1) Thanks, I only have the previous version of the standard at home, and did not remember if that was added in the later edition. 2) Excellent point, to bad almost no one in NYS knows about or is willing to go thru the process. Interesting when you look at most of the accredited depts. standard of cover GIS maps, they are very similar to the NFPA 1710 maps and the ISO maps.......

Ok, so lets stop responding to all Mutual Aid and that will force all the communities to hire enough staffing to cover themselves and meet standards. I can see Pelham running right out and hiring the additional 55-60 they need, and Pelham Manor will do the same, as will everyone else.........If you really believe this is what will happen I have some "waterfront" property in So. Florida I would like to sell you. Also, if the mayors/councils/boards are the one to sign the MA plan and you fail to follow them, I think before they start massive hiring, they will sack the chief and order the replacement to do it.

1) true, but since we are substandard for size & population, hard to take the rest into account. 2) Its not just the politicians, I hear from a lot of firefighters who would rather remain understaffed then become part of anything else. The time is coming and if we do not set it the way we believe it should be then it will be forced on us and it will be set up by politicians that have no understanding of the fire service. 3) it only seams effective to them. And as long as that's the case, you are correct, it will not change. 4) You are correct, but as municipal finances continue to shrink and both career and volunteer depts. shrink, their will come a day when it will no longer work. Then the politician's will scramble for a fix.

NYS Municipal laws are divided to cover what different subdivisions can and cannot do: Counties, Cities, Towns & Villages. Many of these laws prevent one group from working with another.

1) or with 67,896 as they report. And while most communities have unreported population, all are judged (or misjudged accordingly). Lets look at the standards, you have stated that 4 engines is not enough, but the standards only require 3 for a city that size (and only 2 for that area if part of a larger dept.). MVFD runs 2-3 on the 4 engines or 8 - 10 (I believe they never have 3 on all) but the standard says 4ff/1off for the hazards in MV or 15 personnel (on engines). So more undermanned engines is not the answer. Fewer properly staffed rigs is the answer. Fire trucks do not put out fires, firefighters do. In addition to the standards, look at the NIOSH studies that show few better staffed rigs are much more effective. 2) Good question, who knows best? Most of your recent post indicate that those that work in many depts. do not know. And since the local depts. are not meeting the standards, and you state they don't have enough rigs (I say they don't have enough staff). How can you say the "pencil pushers" who set those standards don't know better than those working there? 3) SInce no one can meet your definition, that logic would mean no one should sign it. "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin 4) As long as there is "home rule" their will always be abuses by some communities. YFD does not write the card that MVFD submits, if MVFD puts them #6 (not exactly last in a county with 59 depts.) that's where they sit. YFD has stated they will stay as long as needed at the fire, but standing by in a station with unmanned spares they will give the dept enough time to perform a call back and staff them. If dept. policy is not to do a call back, then YFD is well within their rights to have such a policy 5) Since almost everyone is abusing the plan, kind of tough to get them to complain about exactly what they themselves are doing. I have heard for 30 years how if we keep fighting for proper staffing that someday we will have it and all thru that time we keep shrinking. Consolidation is the best chance of correcting the situation, but too many would rather keep complaining and hoping that we will go back to the good old days.

This is a question that a large number of depts. do not want an answer to. Their are 2 standards for the fire service for this: NFPA 1710 & 1720. 1710 says that career depts. shall have a turnout time of 60 seconds (average). That is from the time of the alarm notification until the vehicle is moving out of the station. 1720 says nothing about responding, other than once you get on-scene you must work in an organized fashion. Medical standards are based on total response time and do not consider the pay status of the responders, because the patient outcome is based on treatment times & not if someone is paid for it. The 1710 standard is easy, since its based on manned stations. The reason 1720 is silent is because the range of volunteer communities is so great that there is no way to make a standard. In a busy VFD in a small suburban community, how long does it take for a crew to get to the station and suit up and get the rig out? Now compare that to an upstate farm community that covers a 100 sq miles.? Also in the more rural communities the call volume is often so low, that you would have trouble justifying shift staffing. I think the only way you can get standards for this is to require regions to publish what their standard I so that everyone can see I. If their was a list that says: Dept A is 3 minutes Dept B is 5 minutes & Dept C is 25 minutes, We now have something to work on, and the community should be told, so they know. 1st step in solving a problem is acknowledging that their is a problem.

Current state law only allows towns to do this. GML requires cities to provide municipal fire protection and does not have this option. But a district could be made up of every community excluding the 6 cities (Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, Peekskill, Rye, White Plains & Yonkers).

I keep hearing that taxpayers will get to the breaking point, but until they show up on election day and vote to change the system, nothing is going to change. In the last mayoral election in New Rochelle less than 18% of the registered voters showed up (12% of the total population). The mayor received 7,501 votes in a city of 77,000 people and claimed that since he won by a "landslide" that it was a mandate for him to do whatever he thought was best. Most school district budgets keep getting overwhelmingly voted to increase above the tax caps & they make up 50 - 70% of the property tax. I hear people are at the breaking point, but their actions seam to ignore that fact.